CD Sonic

[Lach]

Spoiler: Background Information

So, I started dabbling in Lua scripting for SRB2 about a year ago this month, and CD Sonic was the first project I remember working on. I took all the sprites I could find from Sonic 1 and Sonic CD to create a barebones character upon which I could construct custom abilities. Needless to say, it wasn't a particularly impressive project, nor did I ever have the intention of bringing it to the Message Board. Yet for some reason it was quite popular among the people I showed it to, and soon it somehow became an uncommon but fairly present mod in many public servers. There are several different versions and edits floating around at this point; in fact as I was writing this post I stopped to check the Master Server and, sure enough, I found a server playing with someone's edit.

Because it became so popular, I've decided to release a definitive edition onto the Message Board! I'm aware that sprite rip characters are generally frowned upon and I would be lying if I said it wasn't an awkward thing for me to submit, but I've done my best to make up for it by including a plethora of fun abilities.

As if you haven't had enough of Sonic clones, here's CD Sonic! Don't worry; you'll find there are a lot of differences between CD Sonic and any other Sonic we've had in SRB2 so far.

First off: the crouch.

Instead of charging his Spin Dash right away, CD Sonic crouches when you press spin. From here, you can do two things: start a Spin Dash, or start a Super Peel-Out. To charge a Spin Dash, repeatedly tap the jump button; you'll retain the charged up speed until you let go of the spin button to burst forward as usual. To charge a Peel-Out, press forward instead. Unlike the Spin Dash, you only need to press the button once, and you can cancel the move by jumping.

Oh yeah, and the crouch also reduces CD Sonic's height. Might come in handy for certain levels.

Now for CD Sonic's primary ability: Spring Spawn!

While jumping in mid-air, you can press either jump or spin to spawn a spring that will propel CD Sonic either forwards or upwards, respectively. (Note that if CD Sonic is wearing a shield, pressing spin will perform a shield maneuver instead.)

Finally, CD Sonic's unique mechanic: Chaos Emerald powers!

Inspired by Sonic CD's Time Stones, each Chaos Emerald that CD Sonic acquires will grant him a unique ability. Use the weapon selection keys to highlight an emerald, and press fire (or Custom 1, if you prefer) to activate it! Do note that as a drawback, CD Sonic can't use his springs while any emerald slot is highlighted. Collect enough emeralds, however, and you'll start learning how to chain the actions together to perform some nice maneuvers! Here's a peek at what a couple of the powers are—you'll have to figure out the rest on your own!

CD Sonic can't use the Chaos Emerald abilities in ringslinger gametypes, to avoid conflicts with the regular weapon ring selection.

There are a few other neat additions, such as NiGHTS sprites while FSonic is added, and a classic-style control set in 2D levels. Enjoy!

(Please note that the WAD is Wadzipped.)

 

[Inazuma]

So many mechanics thrown into one single character! Very interesting and fun man!

Welcome to Releases!

 

[Wumbo]

I tried out this WAD, and it is, indeed, very fun to play with. The spring spawn and Chaos Emerald abilities are entertaining and definitely make this character unique.

However, I do have a few things to say...

1. Sonic just doesn't look blue enough. I know that the Sonic 1 and CD sprites were a bit purple, but they were still blue. I know that this can be changed in Multiplayer by simply changing the player's color, but I think the default color should still look more blue. Some tweaks to the character palette could help do that.

2. Sonic's front-facing running (not dashing) sprites look very odd, mostly because they aren't facing completely forward and seem a bit messy. Also, one of the frames seems to have an ugly dark outline, for some reason. The standing and running sprites are fine, though, but I think they look a bit unpolished. And about the Super Sonic sprites, I don't know if it was the best choice to use Sonic 3's sprites as a base. I mean, they do look good, but it would look a bit more fitting with Sonic 2-styled sprites instead of Sonic 3-styled ones.

3. I've noticed a glitch with the 7th emerald's power. If you throw the emerald at the floor instead of at a ceiling or wall, you will teleport successfully, but you'll be stuck in one of the falling frames until you switch your ability, jump, or do pretty much anything that can get you out of the running/dashing frames.

With some improving, this could easily be one of the greatest character WADs on the Message Boards (in my opinion). Anyways, good job!

EDIT: Removed my suggestions because the spring suggestion had flaws and I had my weapon switching buttons mapped to the same keys as the strafe keys. Sorry about that.

 

[Goldenhog]

The Emerald stuff is all clunky and not really fun to use, in my opinion. And I was never fond of being given both a spindash and the peel-out since it always seems that one ability makes the other redundant (in this case, the spindash or just plain mashing jump makes the peelout worthless). Had a blast beating the SP campaign with the spring though, having both a pseudo-thok and a double jump at the same time is great.

You should mention the inclusion of extra shield abilities in your post. I guess this is just player error but I jumped into the game straight away without checking the in-game character description since I figured it wouldn't mention anything that wasn't covered in the release post, then got confused about why jump + spin was making me bounce all of a sudden.

4. Just some suggestions: I think jump should spawn the upwards spring and spin should spawn the forwards spring.

Not a good idea, otherwise you'd end up with two ways to double jump when you grabbed the Wind Shield.

Also, I think the keys for switching the abilities should change. The strafe buttons can be important to use, and if your ability is switched every time you try to strafe left or right, that's going to cause problems. I think Custom 2 and 3 would be better options.

It doesn't do this for me, you may have binded the weapon switch keys to the same keys you use to strafe.

 

[Wumbo]

Not a good idea, otherwise you'd end up with two ways to double jump when you grabbed the Wind Shield.

...

It doesn't do this for me, you may have binded the weapon switch keys to the same keys you use to strafe.

You do have a point with the spring suggestion, didn't think about that. And yes, I did have my weapon-switching keys binded to the strafe keys. Oops. Thanks for remindng me about these flaws.

 

[sluggard]

Was hilarious playing this yesterday on a server and watching people break stages with it lol.

 

[Lach]

Thank y'all very much for the feedback so far!

Spoiler: Responses

2. Sonic's front-facing running (not dashing) sprites look very odd, mostly because they aren't facing completely forward and seem a bit messy. Also, one of the frames seems to have an ugly dark outline, for some reason. The standing and running sprites are fine, though, but I think they look a bit unpolished. And about the Super Sonic sprites, I don't know if it was the best choice to use Sonic 3's sprites as a base. I mean, they do look good, but it would look a bit more fitting with Sonic 2-styled sprites instead of Sonic 3-styled ones.

All the sprites in this wad are imported either directly from sprite sheets or downsized versions of them. As I mentioned in the OP, it was originally a skeleton for making my first custom Lua abilities, and the only reason I pushed this up for a release at all is because of its popularity. I'd much rather save spriting effort for something that isn't a sprite rip Sonic.

3. I've noticed a glitch with the 7th emerald's power. If you throw the emerald at the floor instead of at a ceiling or wall, you will teleport successfully, but you'll be stuck in one of the falling frames until you switch your ability, jump, or do pretty much anything that can get you out of the running/dashing frames

I actually did account for that, but there's a slight semantic error on my part that causes it not to work while the seventh emerald is selected. Whoops! Thank you for catching that for me! I'll include it in an update once there are other things to patch.

The Emerald stuff is all clunky and not really fun to use, in my opinion. And I was never fond of being given both a spindash and the peel-out since it always seems that one ability makes the other redundant (in this case, the spindash or just plain mashing jump makes the peelout worthless). Had a blast beating the SP campaign with the spring though, having both a pseudo-thok and a double jump at the same time is great.

I agree—the emerald powers are difficult to use unless you have your controls set up nicely for them. Most of them are actually made out of leftover code from scrapped concepts worked on for other character WADs I'm helping to create. I tried to set them up so that they're fun and powerful if you can control them, but also entirely optional in case you deem them unwieldy. As for the peelout—it's most useful if you don't have springs as your emerald ability and need to get some speed in a tight situation, since the spindash restricts your movement ability until you jump and land on the ground again. Using the spindash in this case also requires you to commit to the action since you can't cancel it with a jump. The usefulness of the peelout is definitely mitigated if you prefer the horizontal spring, though.

You should mention the inclusion of extra shield abilities in your post. I guess this is just player error but I jumped into the game straight away without checking the in-game character description since I figured it wouldn't mention anything that wasn't covered in the release post, then got confused about why jump + spin was making me bounce all of a sudden.

While jumping in mid-air, you can press either jump or spin to spawn a spring that will propel CD Sonic either forwards or upwards, respectively. (Note that if CD Sonic is wearing a shield, pressing spin will perform a shield maneuver instead.)

 

[GreenKnight9000]

THIS IS AMAZEBALLS!!
I will say, though that the Sonic 3 Super Sonic sprites are Ugh-ly!
I think these will suit better (with some modifications :P)

P.S: Found a bug where you can peelout whilst moving in Match (And it doesn't even work properly D:)

 

[Lat']

Overall a really neat character to play as!

I liked the spring thok for being more momentum based, being faster and faster if you use it in a straight line but being much weaker if you try to take a too sharp turn, a nice alternative for the vanilla thok, and also allowing him to run faster if he can keep his speed. That honestly gives a much better sense of momentum than vanilla's sonic thok. The crouch was a bit hard to get used to given that I'm really used to just tapping spin to roll under tight spaces, but that's just lazy me :P

The emeralds abilities are also a really nice touch too, it's really too bad the button limit doesn't allow us to switch back to the spring by a single keypress, it made it much harder for me to try and find interresting combinations of emerald powers to use, and I often ended up wanting to use a spring but then realizing pressing weapon 1 doesn't set the cursor back to it.
Though I must say some definitely are much more powerful than others, I often found the orange emerald to be one of the most useful since I can just run straight without having to worry about the slightest enemy, and the silver emerald also is on a whole new other level. One thing I may add about emerald powers is that using the Homing Attack with the blue one seems to desynch in netgames.

Definitely a character I'll keep using for a while to replay some levels while finding ways to screw around with the emeralds, that there is some good shit.

also this thing doesn't set him to his falling frame and doesn't instantly game over me. 0/10 ;(

 

[Snowy]

A few ideas?

Overall, SUPER fun to use... Even if some abilities are out-right broken.

If I could suggest a few 'balancing' ideas, should you intend to balance them...?

Spoiler

Silver Emerald turns into a lob-based projectile. Still super strong, but requires more skill and aim while not letting the player bypass absolutely everything.

Orange, maybe turn it into a sort-of Boost-like thing, where you need to build up a meter then press a button to activate a short burst of invincibility. The way to build the meter would likely still be running, of course.

Red emerald is neat, I think it's pretty fine. The only change I'd make is possibly letting the player choose a 'start' point for the playback that saves for about half a minute before being deleted.

Purple and Green seem fine. Homing and Light Dash seem fine.

 

[Bluetooth]

It's amazing to play with but..
It just needs to be more balanced to make it fun to compete with.
It really funny yet insane to see players blast through the stage.
Just saying..

 

[Rumia1]

This is an amazing and really original rendition of Sonic that I did not expect to see on the MB. I'm having a lot of fun with the character though I do have a couple minor complaints, one has been mentioned already (the color pallete, which can easily be fixed using color remap in SLADE).

The other being that it's really odd to use the super peelout on spin, since I'm used to holding forward when spindashing. However, the solution I'm suggesting is not a button remap. Instead, could you provide the same jump lock that happens on the spindash? It would make it way less annoying when I intend to spindash and accidentally peel out instead.

EDIT: I noticed you disabled Classic for everybody, why? ^^;;

 

[Lach]

I really appreciate all the feedback, and I will be providing an update once I sort these issues out! Here's some more responses:

Spoiler: aaaaaaaaaa

THIS IS AMAZEBALLS!!
I will say, though that the Sonic 3 Super Sonic sprites are Ugh-ly!
I think these will suit better (with some modifications :P)

P.S: Found a bug where you can peelout whilst moving in Match (And it doesn't even work properly D:)

I can't use those sprites since only the back angles exist. Thanks for the suggestion though!

How did you come across the moving peelout bug? I can't fix it if I don't know what caused it!

The emeralds abilities are also a really nice touch too, it's really too bad the button limit doesn't allow us to switch back to the spring by a single keypress, it made it much harder for me to try and find interresting combinations of emerald powers to use, and I often ended up wanting to use a spring but then realizing pressing weapon 1 doesn't set the cursor back to it.
Though I must say some definitely are much more powerful than others, I often found the orange emerald to be one of the most useful since I can just run straight without having to worry about the slightest enemy, and the silver emerald also is on a whole new other level. One thing I may add about emerald powers is that using the Homing Attack with the blue one seems to desynch in netgames.

I kind of figured the inability to instantly switch to spring might be an issue, but I thought it would be even weirder to move the weapon mask buttons one space to the left (because then pressing 4 would bring up the third emerald). Do you think it would be better that way anyway? (Or even just making any of the weapon mask buttons switch back to spring?)

The homing attack issue seems to be a common desynching issue related to P_HomingAttack, since I can't find any other cause for it. I've switched it to A_HomingChase for whenever I get around to completing the update.

also this thing doesn't set him to his falling frame and doesn't instantly game over me. 0/10 ;(

Are you referring to the three minute time over...? This statement confuses me.

If I could suggest a few 'balancing' ideas, should you intend to balance them...?

I like these suggestions and the people in my Discord server like them too. I will be incorporating some of these (or variations of them) in the update! Thank you!

This is an amazing and really original rendition of Sonic that I did not expect to see on the MB. I'm having a lot of fun with the character though I do have a couple minor complaints, one has been mentioned already (the color pallete, which can easily be fixed using color remap in SLADE).

The palette is currently engineered so that he looks best in steel blue. Are you trying to push for him to be in blue by default instead?

The other being that it's really odd to use the super peelout on spin, since I'm used to holding forward when spindashing. However, the solution I'm suggesting is not a button remap. Instead, could you provide the same jump lock that happens on the spindash? It would make it way less annoying when I intend to spindash and accidentally peel out instead.

Wouldn't that make it even more annoying? Since you won't be able to cancel your peelout to activate the spindash as you intended. I see no reason to disable the ability to cancel a move because one person is used to holding forward before charging a spin dash (which is not even necessary, so).

EDIT: I noticed you disabled Classic for everybody, why? ^^;;

Oops! I meant to disable it only for CD Sonic, since his functions interfere with Classic's. My bad, will fix!

 

[GreenKnight9000]

I really appreciate all the feedback, and I will be providing an update once I sort these issues out! Here's some more responses:

Spoiler: aaaaaaaaaa

I can't use those sprites since only the back angles exist. Thanks for the suggestion though!

How did you come across the moving peelout bug? I can't fix it if I don't know what caused it!



I kind of figured the inability to instantly switch to spring might be an issue, but I thought it would be even weirder to move the weapon mask buttons one space to the left (because then pressing 4 would bring up the third emerald). Do you think it would be better that way anyway? (Or even just making any of the weapon mask buttons switch back to spring?)

The homing attack issue seems to be a common desynching issue related to P_HomingAttack, since I can't find any other cause for it. I've switched it to A_HomingChase for whenever I get around to completing the update.



Are you referring to the three minute time over...? This statement confuses me.



I like these suggestions and the people in my Discord server like them too. I will be incorporating some of these (or variations of them) in the update! Thank you!



The palette is currently engineered so that he looks best in steel blue. Are you trying to push for him to be in blue by default instead?



Wouldn't that make it even more annoying? Since you won't be able to cancel your peelout to activate the spindash as you intended. I see no reason to disable the ability to cancel a move because one person is used to holding forward before charging a spin dash (which is not even necessary, so).



Oops! I meant to disable it only for CD Sonic, since his functions interfere with Classic's. My bad, will fix!

Oops!
It seems that the running-peelout bug was actually caused by Monitors Plus (for some reason)
It works fine without it, I don't know why :/

 

[Lach]

Ah, in that case Monitors Plus probably constantly resets the player variable that controls the max speed a player can run at (which is set to 0 during CD Sonic's peelout so that he can't move). That's bad code design on MP's part since a lot of character wads manipulate this variable, but I can definitely think of a few workarounds. Thank you bringing it to my attention!

 

[GreenKnight9000]

Ah, in that case Monitors Plus probably constantly resets the player variable that controls the max speed a player can run at (which is set to 0 during CD Sonic's peelout so that he can't move). That's bad code design on MP's part since a lot of character wads manipulate this variable, but I can definitely think of a few workarounds. Thank you bringing it to my attention!

No problem! ^_^
Are you going to do Tails sometime (I actually made my own Classic Tails wad but it sucks, you could use it as a base, I guess :/)

 

[Lach]

No—I don't want to make sprite rip WADs a norm. This one is only an exception because it was so well-received by those who played the earlier versions.

 

[Rumia1]

The palette is currently engineered so that he looks best in steel blue. Are you trying to push for him to be in blue by default instead?

Maybe this is just me, maybe it's just truecolor being a bitch, but Sonic looks far too washed out in this palette, if steel blue were more strictly adherent to Sonic 1's palette line, then maybe it wouldn't look so weird (I've also tinkered around a bit with the sprites on my own using color remap and the only way I could get Sonic to look right was lightening the shade of green used and to color him blue by default, making it look a bit more like Sonic 2's palette)

Wouldn't that make it even more annoying? Since you won't be able to cancel your peelout to activate the spindash as you intended. I see no reason to disable the ability to cancel a move because one person is used to holding forward before charging a spin dash (which is not even necessary, so).

TL;DR Rumia uses all the unsupported features >w>;;
I'm an analog user and sometimes I'll stop at an odd angle and use forward to align myself with the camera and then I'll start mashing jump to start a spindash. You can't jump out of a peelout in Sonic CD and I can just press spin again after I realise my mistake if it's jump locked, however this is also your wad so it's up to you.

Oops! I meant to disable it only for CD Sonic, since his functions interfere with Classic's. My bad, will fix!

Hey, I'm just glad someone finally used that function of classic.wad, even if it was just to disable the entire script!

 

[who-what-where-whale]

This character is awesome! I love the how distinct the different emerald powers are, while still having interconnected uses! I think the only one I haven't found a good use for is the orange emerald, but if it also makes you immune to spikes, then I can see tons of neat things you could do with it.
However, I have a few critiques and suggestions that I think would make this WAD much more enjoyable:

1) The Super Sonic sprites are off --the top two spines should be curved inwards, not outwards. so instead of looking like this:

It should look something like this:

2) I think it would be really cool if the Super Sonic screen-nuke thingy gave you a tiny bit of upwards momentum. Not enough to make you gain infinite height normally, but if you use it in conjunction with the purple emerald's power, you could have a method of "flying". That way, it isn't too broken and still requires some amount of skill to be useful. Sorta like bomb-jumping in Metroid.

3) I don't really see the usefulness of the electric shield's ability. Sure, you hover above the ground, but when would this be useful during normal play? Only a select few situations, surely. The other shields have uses that aren't limited by situation. The aqua-flame shield gives you extra height, especially when bouncing off an enemy. The wind shield is just a double jump. The force-shield gives you a stomp-manuver for precision platforming or incase you overshoot a jump. I don't see where this is useful, since most enemies can probably still hit you at that height. I think it'd be more useful if it made you hover very slightly higher than your normal jump-height. I guess you could use it in sections with lots of lava, but that only adds a tiny bit of usefulness that the aqua-flame shield already fills.

 

[Chrispy]

I mean if you really want to poke at the super sprites being wrong, he's got 2 extra spines there